The sonnet comes as naturally as ordinary speech to poet Judith Goldhaber. I’ve enjoyed her versified retellings of classic fables in the book Sonnets from Aesop, illustrated with charming Chagall-like paintings by her husband Gerson. This YouTube video shows the Oakland Symphony Chorus performing “The Power of Light” from the musical “Falling Through a Hole in the Air: The Incredible Journey of Stephen Hawking” (book and lyrics by Judith Goldhaber, music by Carl Pennypacker). Judith is the lady with dazzling red hair who is standing behind the famous physicist. Here are the lyrics:

The Power of Light

i.
To touch the heart of a star,
To feel the ground of being in the boundless,
The edge of space,
The edge of time,
The edge of eternity…

CHORUS:
Feel the power of light
Feel the depth of the night,
Long is the journey to our distant home,
Worlds spin ‘round us but we’re still alone,
Darkness, silence, and the end so far,
Who will speak to us and tell us where we are?
And then…

Comets and candles,
Starlight and diamonds,
Glimmer and glitter and glisten and gleam,
Torches and campfires,
Lanterns and moonlight,
Showery arrows that shine in our dreams —

Moon in a halo
Shedding your luster
Bathing the earth
In your luminous glow…
Carry me
O carry me higher
Carry me,
O carry me further
Carry me upward
Carry me into the light!

ii.
Feel the power of light
Feel the depth of the night
Now we’re moving toward that distant star
Towards the mystery of who we are,
When we’ll reach it we can never know
The path is dark but now we see the way to go
Lit by…
Prisms and rainbows
Opals and sunbeams,
Crimson and orange and yellow and green,
Fountains of color,
Flashes of fire,
Indigo, violet, and ultramarine.
Light more radiant than the sun and moon
Grant us now the eyes to see!
Carry us, O carry us homewards,
Carry us, O carry us starwards,
Carry us Godwards,
Into the source of the light!


Read more of Judith’s poetry at WinningWriters.com (here and here).